


Four Life-Affirming Meals and Assorted Inevitable Disasters

by nwhepcat



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has opinions about the non-life-affirming qualities of packaged ramen on any but the grad-school population. Bruce really wishes he would piss off with his opinions, but finds himself struck with the urge to cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Life-Affirming Meals and Assorted Inevitable Disasters

Bruce rummaged through the bin from his cabinet, hoping to find one last packet of chili lime shrimp ramen. 

"Four a.m., Little Scientists Hour in the Stark kitchen," Tony proclaimed in not very four a.m. volume.

Badly startled, Bruce dropped the bin, scattering packets of ramen everywhere. "Jesus!" 

Tony knelt with him, helping toss the packets back into their container. "I do want to point out that Stark Tower is, in fact, equipped with a kitchen. State of the art, I'm pretty certain."

Bruce paused to shoot him a bemused look. "I am in fact aware of that."

"Just making sure, because this, my friend, is food that you could make using a beaker and a bunsen burner." Tony gestured with a hand bearing a ramen packet which, as it happened, was chili lime shrimp flavor. 

Bruce snatched it from his hand. "Great. That's what I was looking for." He picked up the bin to return to his cabinet only to find himself shouldered aside by Tony, who was rummaging through the rest of the items there, all pretty much preservatives-laced convenience foods.

Taking the bin from him, Tony put it back where it belonged, emerging with another packet in hand to wave it near Bruce's face. "I submit that this is not the diet of a man who loves life."

Bruce gave him an incredulous look, meant to convey _You just now got that memo?_

"In fact, I didn't see one single life-affirming foodstuff -- foodstuff, is that ever singular, or does it always have to be plural? It sounds weird. It sounds weird however you say it -- one single life-affirming food item in that cabinet."

_Now_ he was feeling defensive. "So says the guy who forgets to eat on a regular basis, or eats whatever's at hand."

"The shop rag incident, that was just the once. And it looked sort of like pizza and I hadn't slept for forty hours. And when I _notice_ I'm hungry, and it's before midnight, I put in a call to Thai Kitchen. Mrs. Panyarachunen is extremely well versed in the art of life-affirming food."

Bruce had to give him that. Bright, crisp vegetables, snappy flavors, sauces far from what Clint called "brown gravy Asian food." Still, having Tony -- anyone, for that matter -- rummaging through his food choices, _judging_ , pissed him off. "I don't see you rooting through Clint's cabinet, or Thor's, for god's sake with every flavor of Pop Tart known to man." He caught Tony's side-eye of him and continued without so much as a pause, "And yeah, Thor radiates joy in every single bite he eats ever, so maybe that was possibly the stupidest thing I've said in my life, I get that. But the rummaging and the judging --"

"I'm not judging," Tony interjected.

"You are totally judging."

"I'm not. No judging. I'm cooking." Tony opened the stainless steel fridge door and pulled the vegetable bin drawer. "Here," he said, and began tossing vegetables toward Bruce like it was some cheesy team juggling performance, as Bruce scrambled to keep up.

"You don't cook."

"That doesn't mean I _can't_ cook." Apparently he was satisfied, because he closed the bin and the fridge door. "What do you think? Stir fry? Egg skillet? Pasta dish?" Without waiting for a response, he said, "Stir fry's out. It's been so long since anyone used the wok that the seasoning's probably shot to hell. I'm thinking pasta. Sit. Actually, make another pot of coffee, then sit. Coffee's what I originally came in here for."

There was no resisting the juggernaut that was Tony Stark on a mission, so Bruce did as instructed, while Tony filled a pot of water and washed the produce. As he took his seat to wait for the coffee, he watched Tony's competent hands set about slicing and chopping. Surprisingly, he found something soothing about watching the rhythmic motions. 

"So what's eating you, that a diet of packaged ramen seems like the only way out?"

"Tony, millions of undergrads and grad students live on the stuff."

"Right. But they're broke. Or spending their allowance on alcohol. And they have no concept of mortality. You're going to have to try harder, Banner. You've got a lab full of shiny toys, a pretty sweet living arrangement and you're not hiding out in the shitholes of the world. Seems like things have improved."

"I _liked_ living in those places."

"The hair shirt guide to world travel. I get that."

"You _don't_ get that. I was _helping people_."

"You saved the fucking world."

"No, the other guy saved the world. I was checked out, as usual."

"You subdued Loki. None of the rest of us managed that." 

"Luckily he pissed me off."

Tony gave an eyeroll at that, but no audible response.

"Being an Avenger isn't the same. It's important, yeah. And it lets me make up for some of the high profile shit I've caused. But what I was doing -- I made a difference, one on one, by healing. Not by smashing everything in sight with some vague 'saving the world' outcome."

Tony wiped his hands on a kitchen towel and poured each of them a cup of coffee, then slid one across the kitchen island to Bruce. "You like the down-and-out Mother Teresa type atmosphere."

Bruce scowled. "This isn't a restaurant review."

Waving a hand, Tony said, "Yeah, I know. So how about working in a clinic somewhere?"

"This isn't Calcutta. People in the slums there care about my knowledge a lot more than my degrees. That won't fly here."

"Soup kitchen?"

"Too public. Some of the places I've spent the last few years, they only knew me as 'Doctor.'" Bruce sipped his coffee. "Look, don't take this wrong, but knock it off."

Tony shrugged. "Sure."

Bruce was considering picking up his coffee and going back to the lab or to his rooms when Tony ran his knife over the cutting board, scraping garlic into the skillet where olive oil had been heating on the burner. The fragrance blossomed in the room and suddenly Bruce was ravenous. After a moment of tending to the garlic, Tony dumped in the rest of the vegetables he'd cut up, then rummaged for a package of pasta.

"So where did you learn to cook?"

"This? I wouldn't say it's cooking -- Dum-E could do this. I'm cutting up food things, mixing them with flavoring agents and exposing them to heat."

"Humor me."

His back to Bruce, Tony poked at the contents of the pan. "It was a phase I went through. I don't really want to talk about it."

"Fair enough." He nursed his coffee and watched Tony's movements. It wasn't long before the pasta and vegetables were mixed together and steam scented the room. Tony spooned up two bowls of the mixture and handed Bruce a fork before starting in with his own.

Much as it annoyed him to give weight to Tony's argument, Bruce closed his eyes at the first bite. The slight chewiness of the pasta, tender-crisp sweet peppers and fleshy kalamata olives seemed brilliant beyond belief, and the way the flavors blended were absolutely perfect.

"Not bad," he said to Tony.

"I'll put a five pound bag of MSG on the grocery list if you really miss it," Tony retorted.

Bruce couldn't suppress a smile. "It's good, really good. Thanks."

Both men were on their second bowl when Clint limped into the kitchen. Mumbling a greeting, he went straight for the freezer where the physical therapy-grade icepacks were kept. He draped it over one shoulder, fumbling with the Velcro'd straps, his frustration levels visibly rising. 

"Here, let me," Bruce said, reaching out to sort out the twisted straps. 

Clint stilled to let him, without any apparent improvement in his irritation. This was actually one of his better nights, spent at the indoor ice rink at the pier rather than a bar. His post-Loki administrative leave wasn't sitting well. 

"How about something to eat?" Tony rose without waiting for an answer. "I made some pasta."

" _Fuck yeah_ ," Clint said fervently. He dropped onto the stool next to Bruce's, asking him, "How did this miracle occur?"

"Stark's attempt to win an argument."

Tony placed a bowl in front of Clint, who attacked it with enthusiasm and a string of reverent curse words. Finally, when the fork-to-mouth trajectory was slowing, Clint asked, "So who's winning?"

"I've already won," Tony stated.

He was right. But the argument Tony won was not exactly the one he thought he'd won.

***

Bruce tackled the project with the single-minded devotion to knowledge that he focused on every new topic. He loaded his Starkreader with books on cooking, concentrating on those designed for beginners, with the exception of any books with the words _idiots_ , _dummies_ or _men_. He found books on the chemical reactions inherent in cooking, on ratios, on flavors and how to combine them. In a moment of pointless defiance, he downloaded several books on cooking with packets of ramen. 

It took him much longer than it should have to realize he should get the fuck off the Starkreader and into the kitchen. When he finally did, his brain was jammed with so many possibilities that he was paralyzed for a good ten minutes. Just to break the logjam, he grabbed bread, cheese, butter. A grilled cheese sandwich -- how hard could that be?

_Fuck._ Hard enough, if you couldn't keep your attention focused on what you were doing. Bruce had brought the damn Starkreader with him and gotten lost in an exploration of the molecular structures of different varieties of rice, and the next thing he knew, the sandwich was totally blackened on one side. 

As he was walking the pan to the trash bin to dump it out, Steve wandered into the kitchen. 

"What are you doing?"

"Fucking up a simple cheese sandwich, apparently," Bruce said, and stepped on the foot pedal to raise the lid on the trash.

"Hey, don't throw that out!"

"It's burnt beyond recognition." 

"Fortunately you told me what it is. Give it to me; I'll eat it."

"I'll make another one for you, Steve." 

But before he'd finished speaking Steve had snatched the sandwich out of the pan and taken a bite. "Just like Mother used to make."

"Oh, fucking funny." Bruce felt a warning tingle of anger sizzle through his muscles. 

"I'm not kidding," Steve said. "We had a really unreliable stove, but we didn't waste food."

"I get the whole Depression-era thing. But we're living in Stark tower. There's practically and endless supply of food here." He couldn't quite believe he was encouraging this, but it pained him to see Steve eating his ruined food.

"We didn't throw out food even before the Depression. And besides, there are starving children in ... wherever children are starving these days." Steve tore off another bite, almost angrily. "And why is that still going on, anyhow?"

Bruce sighed. "That would take a dissertation." He washed out the pan and melted another slab of butter as he assembled another two sandwiches. These he attended to with unparalleled focus, turning them altogether too many times before they achieved the toasty golden brown bread and melty centers Bruce aimed for. When they were done, he put them on plates and slid one across the tabletop toward Steve, who'd already completely demolished the burnt one. 

Bruce watched him take a large, enthusiastic bite and asked, "Better?"

Shrugging, he said, "Different. The other one was fine. This one's fine."

As Bruce kept working at learning to cook, Steve seemed to develop an uncanny sixth sense for when an attempt hadn't gone well. He'd show up in the kitchen--whatever the hour--and insist Bruce not toss out whatever smoking ruin or otherwise inedible disaster he'd just created. Bruce suspected he'd had Jarvis send him an alert anytime Bruce was heard to say "fuck!" in the kitchen. 

There was nothing Steve would not eat: the burnt, the undercooked, the curdled, the bland, the horribly off-balance. The runny, the congealed, the gummy -- it was all, according to Steve, "perfectly good food." Bruce was slowly poisoning Captain America. It made him want to stop cooking entirely. But he'd taken up this project as his way of returning to helping people one by one. It still felt like cheating, in a way, putting his efforts toward the other Avengers, not strangers. But if superheroes couldn't use some small, life-affirming moments of grace on a plate, who could?

Bruce tired of making "perfectly good food." He wanted to make something actually good, something that would draw a string of curses from Clint's lips. Hell, sometimes he'd even be happy to make something so terrible Steve would push the plate away after one bite and say, "No thanks" (because of course he would be gracious and polite about it, because that was Steve). 

"What the fuck is my problem?" Bruce groaned after his latest disaster, a dessicated lump that couldn't fairly be called brisket. 

Steve chewed thoughtfully. And chewed. And chewed. "I think you're too impatient. Or, at the other end of the scale, you get distracted by whatever else you've got going on. Sometimes it's both during the same recipe."

Steve had a point. Bruce had seemingly forgotten everything he knew about doing science, focusing so much on results that he'd half-assed the process. He decided to take a step back and focus on sandwiches. Instead of relying on Jarvis, he made an expedition to Trader Joe's and Balducci's for meats, cheeses, spreads and different types of bread. He experimented with combinations, then began making his own spreads. He didn't make a big deal out of it, just wrapped each sandwich and put them all on a tray in the refrigerator.

Gratifyingly, they all disappeared. He had evidence from scattered plates with crumpled plastic wrap that it wasn't all Steve. Encouraged, Bruce decided to branch out into making bread. The first loaf was successful and the sandwiches he made with it disappeared as readily as the others, so he'd made another two. Bruce was cutting the cooled loaves at the kitchen island when Thor wandered in, dressed in full Asgardian regalia and looking battle-weary. 

Thor dropped onto a stool and regarded his hands against the tile counter, seemingly unaware of Bruce's presence a few feet away. He took a piece of bread off the plate, tearing off a piece and shoving it into his mouth. This was not the Thor Bruce had referenced in his argument with Tony. He wasn't eating with his usual joy or gusto--Bruce wasn't even sure he realized what he was doing.

"Trouble in Asgard?" Bruce asked. Thor had been expected back sometime the day before, but their paths hadn't crossed.

"All is peaceful," he said, his tone leaden. "But I grieve for my brother."

"They didn't--"

"No. He is imprisoned, but he is unharmed." He tore off another chunk of bread and stuffed it into his mouth, just as heedless as before. "But his madness and thirst for vengeance have not lessened. I fear they grow worse."

For the first time Bruce wondered about the Asgardian view of madness. Did they view it as chemical imbalance, demonic influence, personal weakness? Or a view particular to the Asgardian worldview? This wasn't exactly the time to indulge his curiosity openly, but he couldn't stifle it completely.

"What precipitated his illness?" It bothered the hell out of Bruce to offer such a ready excuse for Loki's actions. Bruce wasn't even sure it was madness that drove his delight in destruction. He wondered, suddenly, if Clint had any particular insight into Loki's mind after their connection, or if Loki could cloak himself even while controlling others. It might be worth asking, though it might be a painful--maybe quite literally, for Bruce--conversation.

"He has always been a mischief-maker," Thor said. "A shit-stirrer, Sif would say. Always difficult to fathom, at least to me. But this desire to rule and to burn what he cannot rule--I did not know the source of it when he first tried to kill me and usurp our father, but I did find out before his attack on earth." He took another slice of bread and began the same tear-and-eat routine. "He discovered that he is not the man he thought himself to be--the brother that I thought him to be. As an infant he was adopted--stolen--from the realm of our enemies, the Jotuns. The frost giants, we call them."

Setting his knife down, Bruce picked up a heel of one of the loaves and took a bite. Even without jam or butter, it tasted phenomenal. "How did he come to be there? Had he been stolen by the frost giants?" He didn't know what a Jotun looked like, but it didn't seem like Loki would fit the bill as what Asgardians would consider a giant. 

"No, he is a true-born son of Jotunheim. In fact, he is the son of their king. My father took him as a babe after vanquishing Laufey. Once away from the air and soil of Jotunheim, he grew to look more like us. My parents raised us as brothers, raised him with love."

"So when did he find out?"

The second slice disappeared and Thor began shredding a third. He was working his way up to something, and while he did, Bruce thieved a plastic bear filled with honey from Natasha's cabinet and squeezed some out onto a plate, sliding it in front of Thor.

After a long moment, Thor spoke. "I foolishly led a raid on Jotunheim, against my father's express command. Loki accompanied me, and when a Jotun warrior laid hands on him, he did not receive a frost burn as the others did." Shaking his head, he dragged a piece of bread through the honey. "It is my own arrogance which led to his ruin, and all the innocents he has harmed. Had I not gone to battle with the frost giants, he would never have learned his true heritage."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Bruce said. "That's a pretty big assumption. Secrets this huge have a habit of getting out."

"It could have happened in a less destructive manner."

"Yeah? When? Are you sure your parents were going to tell him?"

"My father hoped he would forge a bond of peace between our people. He would have told him when the time was right."

Bruce wasn't quite sure how to respond. How was that supposed to work, exactly? _Hey, I kidnapped your runt son years ago and raised him in the ways of your enemy, how would you like to install him on your throne?_ Either Odin was a naive idiot or a liar who managed to convince one of his sons, at least. Thor wasn't stupid, but love and loyalty could blind anyone, and Thor always believed the best of people. That ability, pretty much flattened to a pulp in Bruce, was one of the reasons he liked Thor so much.

He could think of nothing to say.

Thor took the problem out of Bruce's hands, shaking his head. "But how could there ever be a right time to learn such a thing? When we were children we played at frost giants vs. Asgardian warriors. Our nursemaids told us stories of how, if we did not behave, the frost giants would--" Thor turned his face away. "I used to tease him. Tell him he was surely adopted because fighting was not his skill. I meant nothing by it--"

"I'm pretty sure siblings have been using that one since the dawn of time on every single world," Bruce said. 

"But most do not discover much too late that there is truth in those jests."

There was nothing to say that could make this better. His thoughts went to Loki, now imprisoned on his home world that really wasn't. Could the knowledge that he was an alien--a member of a hated race--have twisted him so readily from a shit-stirrer to a mass murderer? He almost felt sorry for the bastard, but he knew without a doubt that he didn't want that presence crawling around in his head again, stirring up rage and suspicion. Whatever went into making Loki what he was, he was dangerous. Poisonous. 

And yet here was Thor, grieving for the brother he still loved, racked with guilt over childish things most brothers did. Bruce wondered if Thor were questioning the decisions his father had made and his true reasons for them. Bruce would be, but then his relationship with his father was a lot different than Thor's with Odin.

"Are there healers on your world who treat mental sickness?" 

The look Thor threw him was enough to dispell that notion. Bruce almost choked out a laugh at the thought of Loki on a couch spilling out his problems. He'd probably fuck with a shrink's mind more than the doctor would help his. 

"Is he in solitary confinement, or is there someone he can talk to that he trusts, who'll be safe?"

"Our mother. They are close, and I think there is no one on our world he loves better."

"Does she visit him?"

"Yes, of course."

"Maybe she can reach him."

Thor nodded slowly, taking another slice of bread. "I must hope. And I must never stop trying to reach him myself." He drew himself up. "Thank you for allowing me to burden you with my troubles."

Bruce waved a hand. "It's no burden."

"I have had no opportunity to speak of these things. I love my brother, who has been at my side for a thousand years. Yet to say so to my friends here--it looks as though I am defending a monster."

Bruce found himself picking at his own slice of bread. "What made you speak up now?" What he did not want to hear was how Bruce happened to be a guy with his own indefensible monster chained to his side.

"I do not know." Suddenly a smile dawned, not Thor's usual 10,000 megawatt smile, but real. "It was the smell of freshly-baked bread. A smell of home and hearth. But it was your willingness to listen and not judge that allowed me to speak so freely."

Bruce had judged plenty, he knew. Loki and Odin as well. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, that was all. "I'm glad I could help," he said, which was the honest truth. There was probably no one more likable on the nine realms than Thor.

"And I thank you for the repast. Bread and honey are a food from my childhood. Nothing soothes me when I am heartsick as well as a meal such as this." Thor rose and clasped him heartily just below the shoulders. "Thank you again, my friend. I had been reluctant to visit my Jane in such a state. I did not wish to worry her. I must go to her now." 

He bounded out of the room, Thor-like once more. Bruce rubbed his arm, encountering just a touch of stickiness there from Thor's honey-smeared fingers. 

So maybe Tony was right about this whole life-affirming thing.

***

The edibility of his bread, proven by the entire loaf Thor had devoured, inspired Bruce to concentrate on baking. Thor hadn't even been aware most of the time that he'd been eating, but Bruce still considered it a more reliable indicator than the disappearance of all the sandwiches he'd made--which could, after all, be mostly due to Steve's massive furnace of a metabolism and his ethical views on wasting food. 

Success led to experimentation with different types of breads and ultimately branching into coffee cakes, yeasty sweet rolls and the like. 

Bruce found he enjoyed baking. Most things didn't require as much attention once they were mixed and put into the oven, in fact, they thrived on being left alone. The exception, bread, was something he had liked working with from the start. He found the kneading soothing, meditative. The bread itself was almost a bonus.

Since the Avengers were generally fans of pie, he considered giving it a try, but pie crust intimidated him. Not Natasha-level intimidation, but still, the thought of ruining his edibility streak with a terrible crust gave Bruce pause. After some days' thought, he avoided the whole problem by pulling up a recipe for key lime pie with a meringue topping. 

Cue epiphany about the intimidation factor of meringue. Natasha+10, give or take. 

After his first failure, he held off making another attempt until Clint and Natasha were on a mission, Thor was visiting Jane Foster back in New Mexico, Steve was across the country on some PR junket and Tony was holed up in his workshop working on an armor upgrade. 

Which was all for the best, considering Attempt #5 (which followed direclty on the heels of Attempts #2-4) caught the attention of the other guy. When Bruce woke up on the kitchen floor, his bare chest speckled with foamed egg whites and broken eggshells. Sighing, he ran a hand through egg white-spiked hair and nearly pulled out a matted lock. "Jarvis."

"Yes, Dr. Banner."

"I think you'd better tell Tony there's been an incident, get him up here." 

"Right away, Doctor."

As they surveyed the damage, Tony said, "It's actually not bad." It wasn't _good_. The other guy had split a small butcher block table right down the middle, taken out the fancy smoothie maker and ripped the microwave door off its hinges.

Bruce scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Sorry, Tony. I'll pay to have it all fixed or replaced."

"The hell you will," Tony said affably.

"But--"

"Nope. Take your buts out of here. Just tell me, what set you off?"

Bruce looked away, a subtle twitch pulsing at his jaw. "Motherfucking meringue is _not_ life affirming."

***

When Natasha came home to the tower after her op with Clint, it was against medical advice. By then she'd spent two days in the SHIELD med bay and, as Clint reported, was going to put a bullet through the next nurse's aide who came at her with a can of Ensure. 

Hill had already informed them her jaw wasn't broken, so they hadn't had to wire everything together, but the swelling and bruising meant she could barely get her mouth open. There were other injuries too, but that was the specific piece of information that had sent him to the internet and his Starkreader to find recipes for soup. 

He didn't see anything of Clint until the night he'd brought Natasha back and gotten her settled in her room completely unseen--not so difficult to do in Tony's elaborately designed mad genius lair. 

Bruce was cleaning up the kitchen, scouring the last of the pans except the one bubbling on the cooktop, when Clint wandered in to open his cabinet and stare sightlessly into it.

"How's Natasha?"

"Asleep. It'll probably be a while. She's on the good stuff."

"Looks like you could stand to follow her lead." Clint hadn't left her side in the med bay, and Bruce suspected this was the first break he'd allowed himself since she'd been hurt.

"Yeah, once I eat and shower." He'd made no move to grab a snack from the cabinet or even rummage around. 

"Want some soup?"

That finally roused Clint enough to look over at the pot on the cooktop and take a long breath in. "That chicken noodle soup?"

"Noodle-free noodle soup. I made it for Natasha. There's plenty, if you want some. There's also some bread the locusts haven't devoured yet."

By way of answer Clint dropped onto a stool at the island, not even remembering to close the cabinet door. Bruce slid a bowl of soup and a plate with a hunk of bread across the counter to him. "You need more than a catnap. I'm planning to take her some soup and tea when she's awake. Why don't I have Jarvis alert me when her meds are due and I'll take her next round to her?"

He saw reluctance in Clint's hesitation, and a flash of guilt, which came as no surprise to Bruce. 

"You do realize she's a grown-up ninja spy lady and things sometimes go sideways and it's no one's--"

"Yeah, I do, so just shut it." Clint snapped, then added, "Sorry. Good soup."

"Thanks. And it's okay. I happen to get all forms of guilt, rational, irrational and otherwise. She's home now, and safe. And you know her better than I do, but I'm guessing she'll rip you a new one for feeling responsible as soon as she can talk."

Clint snorted. "She already has." He fixed Bruce with a dark warning look that Bruce recognized as totally Natasha, so perfectly her that he couldn't suppress a laugh. Clint managed a weak laugh himself, but it morphed into a cough. Clint grimaced and pushed a hand through his spiky hair. "It's just -- Jesus, Banner." His fingers tightened into a fist. "It's never been just me."

Bruce had heard plenty of confessions when he was on the run; he knew enough to wait this one out. 

"If one of us was hurt --" Clint's fist loosened and tightened again as he worked to control his breathing. "Unless we were pinned down or holed up somewhere --"

_Coulson was there._

"So this situation brings it all back."

Huffing a bitter laugh, Clint said, "It's never gone. But yeah, this makes it worse." He dropped his gaze to the table. "That's not even the most fucked up thing." His other hand came up, palm pressing into his forehead as if trying to hold something in.

Bruce had seen Clint after enough fights to know he was a champ at hiding even the slightest hurt. Digging an ice pack out of the freezer when anyone else was around was the biggest concession he'd ever made, at least since Bruce had known him. He wondered how much it had cost Clint to reveal even as much as he had. 

_Stay still, be quiet. Wait. It would come, or it wouldn't._

"Last time I saw Coulson," he began, and that was all that was forthcoming for a long while. "That last time, I was shooting at him."

"Yeah," Bruce said softly, a neutral sound of acknowledgment.

"Nothing can change that."

"I know."

Clint looked up then, realization in his own eyes that Bruce's declaration wasn't an empty attempt to soothe him.

"Yeah," Clint said in return. He broke eye contact then, swiping the last of his bread across the bottom of the bowl to soak up the remaining broth. "Thanks."

"Any time," Bruce said, whether it was the soup or the conversation he meant.

Standing, Clint said, "I think I'll try to get some sleep. One of Natasha's meds is due at three, Jarvis can tell you which one." He started to pick up the empty bowl and plate, but Bruce took them from him. 

"Just go. I've got it."

***

Bruce kept the soup simmering on the stove until Jarvis notified him that Natasha had awakened. Looking in her cabinet, he found her favorite tea and made a pot, then ladled out some of the soup and headed for her rooms. 

"Jarvis, please tell Natasha I'm here."

After a pause, Jarvis reported in a regret-laced tone that Ms. Romanoff did not wish to receive visitors at this time.

Bruce quirked a wry smile. "Nice translation. Just tell her it's Nurse Chapel with a nice bowl of plomik soup." When the team had introduced Steve to the original _Star Trek_ , Bruce and Natasha had taken to sitting together out of Steve's sightline so Natalie could roll her eyes at the sexist parts. 

Another pause, then Jarvis said, "Ms. Romanoff says you may come in, with some caveats."

"Okay."

"She wishes you to know she does not feel well enough to talk."

"I'm fine with that."

"And she adds that should you cause her to laugh again, she will gut-shoot you."

Bruce couldn't contain a laugh of his own. "Noted."

He heard the door latch click and pushed it open with his toe. The room he entered was as silent as it was dark, yet he still felt its inhabitant's presence. Her floor plan was different from Bruce's own rooms, but Jarvis activated soft lighting, leading him through her suite and toward her bedroom. 

Nudging the inner door open, he found the room faintly lighted with a pink-tinged glow. Natasha lay in the center of an enormous bed piled with pillows, looking small and vulnerable and nothing like a ninja. 

"Hey," he quietly greeted her. There was a slight rustle and a hiss of pain. "Don't move, I'm coming around." Bruce slid the lap tray onto the nightstand, carefully scooting the doll-sized lamp back to make room. When the silk square that had been draped over the lampshade slipped off, he grabbed at it to keep it out of the soup. The sudden relative brightness pulled a gasp from Natasha, then a sharp noise as she raised an arm to shade her eyes.

It looked like a helpless gesture of self-defense, and though he couldn't recall Natasha having made it, the sight triggered a flash of memory that made him freeze. Natasha trapped by fallen debris, fully aware that Bruce was losing the battle against the rage Loki had fueled in him. It shook him, having this past vision overlaid that of Natasha as she was now, her right arm strapped to her torso--dislocated shoulder, he surmised--and her upraised left arm peppered with fingerprint bruises, her fingers all encased in splints. The bruises darkening half her face were fading into yellows at the edges.

Natasha lowered her arm a fraction, eyeing him in return. Abruptly he came back to himself. "Sorry, sorry." He hastily replaced the scarf over the lampshade. The pinkish light it cast warmed her pallor and erased the yellow smudges on her face and arm. 

Carefully she lowered her arm to the down comforter, a flinch slipping past her normally iron control. Still, her gaze stayed on Bruce, gauging.

Deflecting, he said, "I brought some soup and your tea. Something tells me, though, that we've got a logistical problem."

Bruce wasn't sure how Natasha managed to give the impression of raising an eyebrow while keeping her bruised face immobile, but that was the effect. 

"The choices that occur to me are letting them both cool until you can use a straw, or let me handle the spoon for you. And I'll be damned if I've kept this soup hot on the stove half the day just to let you have it cold." He inclined his head toward her. "That is, if you're okay with that."

She lifted the hand with the broken fingers a couple of inches, which Bruce took to be her version of a shrug.

"Are you comfortable where you are, or do you need to be a little more upright?" 

Two splinted fingers raised from the comforter.

"Second option?"

A faint nod supplied his answer.

"Okay. I don't want to hurt you. Is it okay to take your arm here?" Carefully he helped her lean forward so he could arrange her pillows. Natasha scooted back and gradually leaned against the headboard, her lips pressed in a bloodless line. 

Bruce settled the tray over her lap, then poured the tea into her favorite cup, actually a crystal glass set in a silver holder. Then he dropped two sugar cubes into the tea and stirred.

When she flicked her gaze up to him with that almost-raised eyebrow effect, he offered a small smile. "Rituals are soothing. I got into the habit of watching other people's." He particularly liked watching Natasha's, drawn to her deceptive air of quiet -- no, that wasn't precisely true. It was very real when she wasn't in the middle of a fight or a training session. She was the eye of the hurricane in their male-dominated household. "Clint said you're pretty sick of the nutritional shakes. I hope you like chicken soup." Pulling up the chair from her makeup table, Bruce seated himself and dipped a spoon into the soup, bringing it close to her lips so all she had to do was dip her head to sip at it.

Again she looked up at him, surpise and something more lighting her features. "Good," she said, her lips slightly parted but unmoving.

"Glad you think so. By the way, I gave some to Clint and sent him off to bed."

"Good," she says again, with more intensity despite the careful immobility. 

Bruce could have said more, but they were both fully aware of what was wrong with Clint. They settled into silence as he spooned up soup and tea. By the time he finished and helped her lie back amid her pillows, Natasha's pain meds had begun wearing off, still too early for the next dose. 

"I can stay, if it helps, or I can go," Bruce said. "Whichever you prefer." 

"Here," she whispered, rough and quiet as a leaf blowing across a sidewalk.

"Jarvis, can you tell me what helps?" 

"Agent Barton has recounted stories of his vacations and solo missions, which may have been somewhat embellished."

Unable to suppress a smile at this, Natasha followed it with a wince. 

Jarvis continued, "He also strokes her hair on occasion."

This option felt so out of bounds that Bruce couldn't imagine it being permissible from anyone but Clint. He felt weirdly embarrassed for Jarvis for even mentioning it. Offering an awkward flicker of a smile, he said, "Don't worry. I know I'm not Clint."

This earned him eyebrows with actual movement.

The last thing Bruce could imagine was her wanting him to touch her hair when she could remember the other guy going after her with fists that were larger than her head. The next-to-last thing he could imagine was a way of putting this into words. 

You didn't get to be the level of spy that Natasha was without reading people. She turned the less damaged side of her face toward her pillow and murmured something unintelligible to Bruce.

Jarvis interpreted: "Ms. Romanoff would remind you that you are not the other guy, either."

That, Bruce thought, was highly debatable. But Natasha's wishes were not, so he attempted to maneuver his chair closer. When he found his efforts frustrated, he turned them to the nightstand, which was blocking the chair.

"There is a rather large and comfortable bed immediately to your right, Doctor," Jarvis noted. 

Unsure if this helpful hint was generated by Natasha's wishes or by Jarvis, who after all was programmed by a man with a remarkable lack of boundaries, Bruce looked to Natasha for an answer. She was oblivious to his uncertainty, her eyes closed and her lips pressed tightly together as a her pain reached a new level. That was all the answer Bruce needed; he toed off his shoes and climbed into bed, careful to disturb her as little as possible. 

He settled in against the headboard, with a couple of pillows at his back. "I have a sneaking suspicion you don't want to hear _my_ war stories," he said. "So why don't I talk about cooking?" Without waiting for an answer, he added, "And I'm going to do the ... hair thing now. If you want me to stop, just let me know. Growl or something."

Bruce began tentatively, as if making overtures to a sometimes-vicious cat. Laying his hand on her pillow, he brushed a thumb lightly over her hair. She made a low humming noise, shifting closer. Confident now that he wouldn't lose a hand--or her trust--he began stroking her hair with his whole hand. 

To cover his awkwardness, Bruce began telling her about his cooking project. He began with Tony's mockery of his ramen, his various kitchen disasters heroically eaten by Steve, his enjoyment of baking. He rashly promised her that once she was well enough to request and eat a meal of her favorite dishes, he would make a special dinner. 

He kept up the monologue, punctuated by the occasional soft hum or hiss of pain from Natasha, until Jarvis informed them it was time for her meds. He helped her sit up long enough to take the pills and be sure they didn't lodge anywhere, then helped her settle back as comfortably as possible. Over the next few minutes her breathing evened out, then slowed. 

"Would you like me to stay or go?" Bruce asked softly.

"Here," she whispered again.

"You've got it," he assured her. Leaning back against the pillows and headboard, he let his fingers move through her hair, talking her to sleep and keeping watch over her until Clint returned.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if Bruce/ramen is canon, fanon or neither, but a story or two with ramen-eating Bruce made me consider the physicist I once knew who ate a similar, unvarying diet, and it made me think Tony has something here. Thanks to Nickelmountain for the Bruce cooks! prompt.


End file.
